The Dell Mini 12: Benchmark Results
- June 21st, 2009
- Posted in Games . Hardware
- By weasel
- Write comment
By “popular” request, we’ve opted to run some benchmarks on this paper-thin pugilist. DoomRater posted in the comments that he was interested in three specific benchmarks (thankfully none of which included running Crysis): ZSNES running Contra 3, Project64 running Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Soldat running a botmatch.
The first test, naturally, went off with no hitches: ZSNES, being written for x86 assembly and optimized for Pentium 2, proved no difficulty whatsoever for the Mini 12. Contra 3: The Alien Wars ran at a perfect 60/60, showing no faltering and almost no tearing (and no tearing whatsoever once I remembered to turn VSync on). Default settings were proving to be no issue at all. So I stepped it up, beefing the screen resolution up to 1280×800 fullscreen and turning on the HQ3x filter. Still no performance loss whatsoever. I even threw the more complicated games at it – Super Pinball: Behind The Mask, a game making heavy use of the SA-1 coprocessor, also displayed no issues.
Project64 was where the first hiccups began. As the Mini 12 does not have proper video hardware acceleration, the Intel Graphics chip was all we could make do with. Set to the default settings, the introduction of Ocarina of Time ran at roughly half the intended speed, with the sound making horrible stutters all the way. I didn’t check to see if there was a software-only renderer included; I doubt this computer could handle that sort of thing, if it can’t handle it even with an onboard graphics accelerator.
Soldat sounded significantly easier, yet still presented a headache. Upon setting the game up, the program displayed an error that it could not initialize DirectX video and promptly peed itself over the available memory. By the time I could get to its process in Task Manager, it had racked up about 64 MB and was still increasing. Conclusion: Soldat doesn’t work.
So, the Dell Mini 12: too much gaming muscle? Well, it really depends on what kind of game you want to run. If it needs video hardware…you’re basically screwed.
(All tests were performed at default settings unless otherwise noted; testing OS was Windows 7 Ultimate Release Candidate, with a system rated at performance index of 1.9.)
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Wow, I’m so not impressed. Was Project 64 windowed? It ran fine on the Sylvania G netbook when I put Windows XP on it, albeit with stuttering during the Navi flight and between cutscenes. And that bitch was $200. On the other hand, there was visible stuttering on the screen when trying to play Contra 3 (even though a perfect 60/60 was being reported by ZSNES) which ultimately made me reconsider owning the thing. Which I am now glad I did sell. (that is, soon as I get the money)
Heh, I doubt Second Life will run on it whatsoever in these cases.
Truthfully, I don’t really care if you’re impressed or not. I don’t use it for emulation. I use it to surf the net and listen to music when I’m not at home, which, being a NETbook, is exactly what it’s for.Edit: I was in quite the bad mood at the time. However, the first part of that is rather true. I really DON’T care, because I actually DON’T do any emulation on it. However, I have realized that that was rather harsh.-Malachai
HOWEVER, thank you for running the benchmarks because it saves me from having to purchase the thing and find out for myself how it behaves. I’m just keeping tabs on the systems so I know whether it’d be worth it for myself to get one. I’m NOT actually berating you or your choice in a netbook.
The thing is, if it’s having trouble doing those things, it’s likely going to have trouble playing PSF2s as well. I keep a lot of high demand music as well as the desire to play games on something like this, so for the money it isn’t worth it for me to get one. And that’s really what the benchmarks were all about.